More and more, it is a case of till divorce do us part

By Tim Colebatch CanberraAugust 23 2002

Australians have never been less likely to get married, or more likely to divorce if they do. The number of marriages has plunged almost 10 per cent in a year, while the number of divorces soared even faster.

Only 103,130 couples tied the knot last year, 10,300 fewer than in 2000. It was the lowest number of marriages for 23 years, and at just 5.3 marriages for every 1000 people, the lowest marriage rate recorded since Australia became a nation.

At the same time, a near-record 55,300 couples were formally divorced, 11 per cent more than in 2000. The only year more people formalised the break-up of their marriage was in 1976, when the Family Law Act took effect.

The Bureau of Statistics reported yesterday that Australia had just 1.86 marriages for every divorce last year, down from 2.75 marriages for each divorce 20 years ago. It is the first time the ratio has ever been less than 2:1.

The bureau speculated that the jump in divorces might have partly reflected the introduction of the Federal Magistrates Service, which dealt with slightly more than half of all divorces granted. The figures will add to pressure for the Federal Government to increase its support for relationship counselling in its review of family policies now under way.");document.write("

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The bureau estimates that at the marriage and divorce rates of the late 1990s, 32 per cent or almost one in three Australian marriages will end in divorce, up from 28 per cent in the mid-'80s.

It also estimates that on the same basis, 23 per cent of today's young women and 29 per cent of men will never get married. Many of them may have children outside marriage, but social research suggests de facto couples with children are even more likely to break up.

While the number of divorces shot up 34 per cent between 1981 and 2001, the number of children involved increased only 8 per cent. Almost half the couples divorced last year had no children under 18. The new figures also reveal that:

* 72 per cent of all couples getting married have lived together before marriage. But 42 per cent of those who go to the altar have not lived together first, whereas only 16 per cent of those married by civil celebrants will be changing homes.

* Civil celebrants carried out 53 per cent of all marriages last year, but largely because they carry out the vast majority of second, third and fourth marriages. Of couples marrying for the first time, 56 per cent still did so in a church or other religious service.

* In Victoria, almost one in five couples are married in a Roman Catholic church, almost one in 20 in an Orthodox church and one in 150 in a synagogue. But only one in 12 are married by an Anglican minister and one in 20 in the rites of the Uniting church. Almost two-thirds of all Islamic weddings nationally were in New South Wales.

The bureau said the figures continued "a 20-year trend" that has resulted in fewer people getting married, more of those marriages happening later in life, fewer happening inside churches, and more ending in divorce.

The figures also suggest migrants may be hastening these trends. Last year 77 per cent of all first marriages involved Australian-born couples, whereas 34 per cent of all second and subsequent marriages involved at least one overseas-born partner, above their share of the population.

Strikingly, the bureau also reports only 58 per cent of divorces last year involved two Australian-born partners. Last year 29 per cent of all divorces were between couples from different countries, while 13 per cent involved two migrants from the same country.